Nature on the doorstep, not a destination
Julie Parish, Development Manager at the Octopus Community Network, explains how a five-year grant is supporting urban access to nature and community food growing in Islington
- Author: Julie Parish, Octopus Community Network
- Published: 11 December 2024
The Octopus Community Network is a long-established, mutual collaboration between 14 of the largest multi-purpose, independent community centres in Islington, north London.
Over the past 15 years, one key theme of Octopus’s work has been engaging with diverse communities, primarily those living in social housing in Islington, with the aim of improving their health and wellbeing through better access to nature.
In 2020, Octopus was successful in securing £186,400 from City Bridge Foundation to support work which is being delivered over a period of five years, between 2020 and 2025. With secure funding in place, Octopus has had the opportunity to explore and facilitate the steady development of the Community Plant Nursery in Tufnell Park.
The Nursery acts as an urban food growing learning hub and as a demonstrator site, not only inspiring urban food growers, but also helping to address food insecurity and climate change.
The benefits of having funding over a longer period of time has helped us develop a strong sense of community along with proven practice in setting up and sustaining urban growing, greening and food growing.
Our work has been featured in the Guardian, where the article highlighted how food growing and friendship go hand in hand, and we’ve caught the attention of others exploring potential for urban agriculture and place-based transformation through agritecture, for example, we were involved with Cranfield University in the Urban Cultivate pilot project.
Everything we do is community driven and by listening to communities about how they want to transform their neighbourhoods. We are now one of 18 community partners engaging in a four nation Nature Neighbourhoods project supported by the National Trust, World Wildlife Foundation, RSPB, the Coop and the National Lottery Community Fund.
It is now widely recognised that we depend greatly on biodiversity within our local environment for our wellbeing and quality of life. Islington is a very urban borough, the most built up of all the London boroughs, and is the most densely populated local authority in England and Wales. Only 13% of the borough’s land is green space, the second lowest proportion of any local authority in the country.
The habitats and species that are significant on a national scale are often not present here. Seventeen percent of Islington is deficient in access to nature, meaning that there is inequality in opportunity for Islington residents in accessing natural greenspace.
Within this context, it can be easily understood how our people-driven Nature Neighbourhoods project requires a creative, solution driven approach, and we know that those solutions are within communities.
We kicked off the project with a Walk and Talk around the neighbourhood and by the end of it, all agreed that nature should be on your doorstep and not a destination
Rosie Apperley, Project coordinator
By the end of its grant, Octopus will have engaged with more than 1,500 local people, improving their access to freshly grown food, their growing skills, environmental literacy, community food knowledge, and their access to diverse growing spaces.
If you would like to see the Community Plant Nursery for yourself, we are holding our annual afternoon of festive wreath making at the Nursery on Saturday, 14 December 2024 – see the Octopus Communities website for more information.